Using our Audience's Feedback

We have received a lot of our audience's feedback in multiple forms throughout the process of creating our video. In the research stage, we gained a lot of feedback from our Survey Monkey. 

The most popular opinion for 'what to expect in a typical Drum and Bass music video' was dancing and performing. For this reason, we have added multiple shots of Izzy dancing, particularly towards the second half of the video when the beat picks up. 

For the question 'would you expect the editing to match the pace of the music', the answer was a unanimous yes. We bared this in mind when it came to editing our footage, and ensured we edited to the beat where it felt appropriate. It's particularly effective after the first verse when the speed picks up and the video changes from black and white to colour on the beat(s).

It was more popular than not for our audience to 'expect a variety of locations', which we'd originally planned to do anyway, so we were therefore more confident in doing so knowing it was expected among our audience. Throughout the video we have altered between the two locations we filmed in, being the studio and Paris. 

We have also included the shot of the beach during the bridge of the song, which we additionally edited to the beat to flash on and off of the screen appropriately. I also feel like it was appropriate to use this shot as it is when the pace of the music begins to slow before picking up again, so is therefore quite peaceful and contradictory to the busyness of Paris.

When our video was part way through construction, we got audience feedback from what we had created so far. 

They said they liked the projections and suggested we could use more shots of them to make it more creative, which we then added. 

Further feedback we received was to get more varying shot types, so we therefore got birds-eye shots of Izzy singing and dancing to add to the existing shots we already had. 

We then reflected the image to make it more creative, and again, edited it to change on the beat from the above picture to the one below. 

These shots then juxtapose effectively with the previous shots we edited of Izzy where she is sitting down, reflected to be 'facing herself' and then again to be 'back to back' with herself. The background colours also contradict each other nicely, with the grey background when she is standing to a white background when she is sitting.  

Overall, it has been very beneficial for us to receive feedback throughout constructing our video as we were then able to make the relevant alterations needed along the way.  

Alterations made along the way.

along the way, we made a number of alterations including changing one of locations from London to Paris. another alteration we made included changing the video itself to make it better and again relate to the genre. the original video we made was the rough-cut as you can see below. however we changed this video in order to enhance our skills and to make it follow the story board and show our desired outcome. the final music video which we uploaded, was a huge improvement on the rough-cut we created. this was because in the final video we all managed to come together in order to achieve the same desired outcome. we therefore changed most shots but kept in some shots from the original. we also changed the editing to fit with the beat, especially in the chorus. finally in the final video we decided to only have one artist In it unlike in the rough-cut where we had two. we did this because we didn't think the two artists worked together and fitted the genre. therefore all the alterations we made along the way allowed us to be where we are now and ultimately allowed us to create a great and exciting video.


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GoPro use in our music video.

I used a 'GoPro' to film the beach shots in our music video. This was chosen due to its fish eye lens, meaning more of the location could be filmed, compared to taking the shot on a normal camera. I think the effect worked well, and offered a perfect contrast to shot types already used in our music video. The lens worked well in capturing a length of the beach, and capturing the sky.This wasn't originally in our plan to use a GoPro, however after seeing its different effects compared to a DSLR camera, we decided to use it to add contrast to our filming and shot types.

Reasons behind specific shots in our music video

Sea Images

We chose to include sea shots in our music video to create a contrast between the cities and the artist. We placed these shots in the slow motion section of our music video, which perfectly contrasts the other shot types. Like the song, we added a slow motion effect to the video. The shot alters on the beat of the music and we are really pleased with the effect of this shot in our music video. It also links to earlier lyrics 'Over mountains over sea'.

 

Lighting Shots

We added in shots of the artist singing surround by lights into the chorus, we did this to show a change in tempo as before the shot was the same shot of the artist at the start of the song, with no signalled change in song pace. The light in this shot adds to our drum and bass theme as it could reflect a 'club' like scene, and echoes the lyrics 'lights flashing by me'.

Dance Shots

 

Like the lighting shots, we added in dance shots of the artist to compliment the drum and bass genre. We have found these shots work w3ell in breaking up the slow paced elements of the song and the fast paced elements.

Storyboard Changes - Anna Hester

Alterations made along the way

Originally we planned on filming 50% of our music video in London and 50% percent of it in a studio. Although we were able to film the studio section, filming in London was quite a difficult thing to film, with locations needing permission and finding days and transport so that the necessary people could get there. Due to this we had to change our location idea and think of new ways we could incorporate cities into our music video. With one of our members visiting Paris, she took videos of city transport and landscape, to intersperse into the singing in our music video. We then also developed our projections idea (projecting images onto the artists face) and created the Paris videos in to projections and trialled them onto the artist. This worked well, and we are happy that although we couldn't film 50% of the video where we originally planned to, that we incorporated similar ideas into a more original and effective idea.
 We also found that some shots fitted better in the video than the ones originally made on the storyboard. Shots such as silhouettes in tunnels, didn't highlight the miming of the artist as much as we had hoped for, after experimenting with a green screen, we realised that this shot wouldn't work as well as we hoped, and the green screen wouldn't give the same effect as envisioned. Replacing this shot, we now have close ups of the artist who is sat side on, to replicate the original positioning of the artist in the tunnel, and we also have long shots of cityscapes, to fulfil our urban feel from the original storyboard, as we didn't want to loose what our original aim for the piece was, which involved contrast in locations from city to studio. As we already had the studio shot, we thought it would be a shame to loose the contrasting cityscapes, so we managed to incorporate these also in the music video, as planned.

Props (altered and updated.)

Since re-analysing our props and shot types in our music video we have removed some of our original props and introduced new props. We decided to take some away due to flares being quite impractical, due to locations you can use them in, and skateboards not having the desired effect we had intended them to have.
We are now using a projector to project images of cities onto the artists face, and possibly to replace shots we previously would have taken in London.